intransit1217

It's not a race, it's a ride. Maybe. It the course has an opening time and a closing time, then it's a race. Against the clock maybe but nonetheless you'd better gas on it at least a bit.

So, different zones depending on length and time allotment?

Examples?

Thanky.

unterhausen

well, it's not really a race in the classical sense. But a lot of people go for time. I don't record my rides, but I don't spend much time in the red. The main reason for me is simply food, it's wasteful of calories to go too hard.

Drew Eckhardt 

The time limits require a 9.2 - 9.3 MPH average speed for 200 km/124 miles, 300 km/186 miles, 400 km/248 miles, and 600km/373 miles. 1000 km/621 mile and 1200 km/745 mile rides allow 8.3 MPH. 1400 km/870 mile brevets allow a 7.5 MPH average.

Your aerobic threshold (somewhere in Friel heart rate Z1 or Z2 depending on training and genetics, ending at 81 and 90% of lactate threshold which is what you'd average on the last 20 minutes of an all-out 30 minute effort) is the maximum you can sustain for a 5-hour ride with an even power split between halves, 5 hours isn't even enough for most people to finish even 200km so you're going to average less.

While you can go harder for short periods the fatigue is non-linear, with accepted models having it proportional to the square of exertion. Ride 40% harder and you double your fatigue. You also have a finite number of "matches" and once they're gone you have no hard efforts left.

znomit

Sometimes you need to burn a match or two to get to the cafe/bakery/pub before closing, where you might be able to buy some new matches.

intransit1217

The RAW has a window of 13.5 hours for 175 miles. The first 100 being substantially hilly. By my calculations, one would need to average 15mph to finish with a bit of time to spare. One needs to factor in a few short breaks, no? A bathroom break, refueling/ water resupply, and maybe 30 min for a small sandwich or something.

I'm hoping to get on a serious training regime after christmas which should leave me ample time to prepare properly for 2017. Even with this time I still expect to be in the "human" category of cyclist.

9606

Drew -
"You also have a finite number of "matches" and once they're gone you have no hard efforts left."
Where do W' and tau fit into this?

Carbonfiberboy 

Looking back at my records . . .
IME 5600' 200ks are completely different animals. They're easy enough that I could ride them more like a century:
Z1 : 3%
Z2: 20%
Z3: 46%
Z4: 27%
Z5: 3%
= 7:21 saddle time

300's with 10,000' are much more demanding of endurance:
< Z1: 14%
Z1: 45%
Z2: 37%
Z3: 4%
= 12:02 saddle time (195 miles)

A flattish 400 (5000') is about the same:
<Z1: 7%
Z1: 46%
Z2: 32%
Z3: 10%
Z4: 5%
= 13:17 saddle time

A 400 with 12000' is harder:
>Z1: 21%
Z1: 43%
Z2: 30%
Z3: 6%
= 15:37 saddle time

I was over 60 when I did these, so younger folks should be able to run a bit higher. I never was a fast rider, just well trained and steady. The fast boys were a couple hours or so under these times.

For long endurance rides, just gear down and keep your butt in the saddle. No popping over the little hills. Keep the effort down unless you have to because it's really steep. The fast boys do the same thing, they just use bigger gears.

ThermionicScott 

Do your eating/drinking on the bike, get your business done quickly at the stops, and you'll have a lot more time to spread out that effort.

Drew Eckhardt 

W' is like ATL and tau its time constant while matches are more like stress balance.

With enough interval repeats past FTP you reach a point where you can pedal easy for tens of minutes creating ample W' balance, but still can't ride hard enough to be productive.

Microcycle/mesocycle/macrocycle are an analagous taxonomy. You can deplete and replenish W' balance as in a training microcycle where you have hard days and recovery days which get you to the next hard day. Matches disappear over a ride like stress balance accumulates in a mesocycle until you take a recovery week. There's an even longer period after which you're spent, like a macrocycle peak.

I wonder about similar limits for sub-threshold efforts on long rides. How many total feet over a number of climbs can I cover at 85-95% of FTP between aerobic and anaerobic thresholds?

Does maximum sustainable climbing rate drop on long rides from overall fatigue or depleting some other reserve?

Carbonfiberboy 

To some degree it's neurological decay, but I think adequate training helps prevent that. Other than that, it's glycogen reserve. So we start out below VT1 burning mostly fat. VT1 is a little below the usual top of Z2. As we go above zone 2, we start to burn more carbs. As long as our power output stays below the sum of power from fat and from blood sugar, we don't burn glycogen. When we go above that, we do. Your "matches" are lit by glycogen. On long rides therefore our glycogen stores limit our hard efforts, since glycogen is not replaced during a ride AFAIK, only when resting. On really long rides, we avoid dipping into these stores as much as possible because they're irreplaceable and we just might need them going up the hill from hell, which is sure to be included in any decent brevet. Hence the almost complete absence of Z4 and Z5 from long rides in my previous post. That's not because I was dogging it: it's because I was TTing it as hard as possible. Bevets and LD races are just long TTs. Nothing more to it. Note that my zones are HR zones. It's very possible that I was in upper power zones more than shown, but HR did not respond to the effort.

intransit1217

Fatigue being non-linear, I assume it's an upward curve over time which varies from person to person. But would a fatigue graph for the RAW be more like an angular line at the beginning then curve to a short plateau then again curve upward towards the end?

Carbonfiberboy 

On a long ride, fatigue comes and goes. It's personal and varies with food, hydration, terrain, riding partners, time of day, and mental state. You'll feel strong for the first 100k or so, but it's easy to get fooled and go too hard near the start. I've had times of being able to go hard even near the end of a long ride.

Drew Eckhardt 

Right on. I always thought about glycogen stores in terms of bonking, but you could run out in your muscles while your liver is fine and blood sugar stays reasonable.

With a few assumptions simple arithmetic fits that:

In good shape I manage a 220W FTP (3.5 - 3.6W/kg); and am not good for more than 4x10 minutes starting at 240W

240W * 10 minutes * 60 seconds / minute = 576kj. Past AnT Metabolic efficiency approaches 25% so with 1 kcal = 4.2 kj * .25 = 1.05 kj out we might assume 549kcal; and although people do better we might assume 100% carbs at that level.

If I disregard blood glucose and liver glycogen stores, the average human has about 400g of glycogen in their muscles or 1600 kcal @ 4 kcal each. With no way to move that between muscles, I might assume 1/3 of that is available in my cycling muscles which is 533 kcal worth.

549kcal used > 533kcal available

although I can still approach threshold where glycogen should be a significant component of my energy.

Maybe that's where liver glycogen comes into play, with some limit to how fast you can get it into your bloodstream which is insufficient to support supra-threshold efforts.

Absolutely.

Rowan

For 1200s, this is not quite true. For 1,000kmrides, intermediate control closing times are based on 15 km/hr up to 600 km and 11.4 km/hr between 600 km and 1000 km. For 1,200 km or greater rides, the average up to 600 is 15km/h, between 600 and 1000 it is 11.428km.h and for the final 200km it's 13.3km/h. These variations obviously take into account sleep time during the events, but nevertheless, the average speeds vary during the event.

unterhausen

it's the organizer's choice to use uniform time limits or reducing time limits. Most organizers use the PBP scheme, but uniform is an option

Richard Cranium

One person's "zone" is another person's disaster.

What zone? Does it matter? Is there anything more individual than a specific brevet, on specific equipment at a specific time and date?

This is as silly as asking how much do you drink, or how often, on a some ride you never experienced, nor set goals for.

In contrast, there may be usefulness is asking how often other brevet riders go into the "red" and where at on the specific route - when comparing goals for a specific brevet.

intransit1217

Fair enough. Where would you go into the red on a RAW ride? And how would you handle that particular profile?

Personally, I've had problems going too hard too soon, without being on an official ride. Just recently, like within the last 2 weeks, have I actually learned what it means to go slow. Today I managed just 12 mph average with hr of 112 average for 64.5 miles over 5 hrs 21 minutes travel time. I paused the garmin if I stopped for food. It just hit me. Don't pause the garmin for any stops for a more accurate average. Sometimes I ask the wrong questions to find out what the right ones are.

Now gimme my gold star for going slow, dangit.

intransit1217

Thank you, carbonfiberboy. This helps me frame it mentally a bit better.

Carbonfiberboy 

You're welcome. Remember: "there is no slower speed than stopped." - Fave rando saying. When I'm getting close to a place I know I'm going to stop, I prioritize my needs. If I came in with a good group, I watch 'em close. If I'm solo, I set a time limit, like 10 minutes, unless I'm having issues.

thebulls

Measure LT: warm up for ten or fifteen minutes then do a half-hour time trial at maximum effort for the full half hour; figure out your average heart rate over the final 20 minutes.

John Hughes calls the region down to 10 beats below this Barf Minus. He calls the region to about 8 beats above this "LT"; and the region above that Barf Plus.

My philosophy is that on a multi-day event, I want to stay out of those three regions. In all three, you're starting to burn glycogen at increasing rates. So my goal on PBP was to avoid the adrenalin rush and temptation to jump onto paceline for the first few hours and keep my HR below Barf Minus. For me, LT is about 162 so I'm trying to keep my HR below about 152.


You can judge how well I did at that from the graph, which shows most of the first 24 hours of PBP. I spent 2 minutes above LT, none in Barf+. I spent 39 minutes in Barf-, 2.8 hours in Temp, 5.8 hours in Toodle, and 12.5 hours in "Recovery" zones. Average HR was 124.

FWIW, despite being roughly 5 hours behind schedule at the 800km point (and thus projected to finish 3 hours over the time limit) I made up all this time by the end and finished with a little over 2 hours to spare, 7 minutes ahead of forecast.

unterhausen

I suppose I should pair up my heart rate strap to my garmin and see what I do. I can feel it in my legs when I am pushing harder than what is sustainable. I just have to decide if it is going to cost more time to do that or go slower. With tough courses, sometimes you just can't go below a certain level of effort.

Richard Cranium

This comment reflects an intelligent understanding of how an HR monitor could help a cyclist in a given circumstance.

The point of my original post was disparage the idea that a generalization of HR zones and data are somehow useful.

Another critical aspect of successful brevet riding is knowing your stress level tolerance when attempting to hang with a group more experienced,
more powerful riders. Burning a match or two during and early part of a ride, may prove to be a life-saver - or a disaster - if the winds turn nasty and you are left alone in the open - later in a ride.

But I digress - these topics (and decisions) are largely specific to the personal goals and needs of each rider. "Not an average or Zone."

Carbonfiberboy 

I find that just a couple of beats makes a big difference over long periods. OTOH, it takes a fair bit of experience with an HRM to learn to interpret what it's telling you. Best to go by feel and watch what it does on brevets for a while before trying to go by the HRM.

yannisg

During long Brevets the body's performance is not constant no matter how diligent you are with drinking, fueling, and pacing yourself according to yr ability. I have been in a group struggling at the back, and after awhile I lead the group with ease, and this situation repeats itself.
I have found that one should try and match the body's performance with the demands of the terrain which is easier said than done. Lately, I have found that my body needs a very long time to warm up and starts performing after around 50-80k. The older you get the longer the warmup time. If I'm not a careful during this warmup period and get influenced by fellow riders and increase the pace I'll suffer, and it will take a long time to recover.
For instance on a recent Brevet that the 1st steep 8k climb started after 10k my HR was 140-145. I couldn't increase my pace. On the 2nd 5k climb, which was after 60k, I felt much stronger, and I could maintain a HR of 155-160 with a much faster pace.
Usually, I'll feel much stronger on the 2nd half of the Brevet.
Try to listen to yr body its not an engine and has its ups and downs.
The more you learn about how yr body performs the more you will enjoy yr Brevets/rides.
YannisG

intransit1217

Checking in...reading...processing......

Thank you